Jim Davis | Garfield Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Betty Davis (Mother) James Robert "Jim" Davis (born July 28, 1945) is the creator of Garfield . As a cartoonist, he has also worked on Tumbleweeds (as an assistant to Tom Ryan), Gnorm Gnat , U.S. Acres (Orson's Farm outside the United States), and a strip about Mr. Potato Head. He is the writer of all the CBS television specials and the direct-to-video movies, as well as a producer/executive producer for Garfield and Friends , the DTV movies, and The Garfield Show . He will be an executive producer for an upcoming film . Contents [ show ] Biography Jim Davis was born in Marion, Indiana on July 28th, 1945, and grew up on a small farm in Fairmount, Indiana with his father James William Davis, mother Anna Catherine (Carter) Davis, brother Dave, and twenty-five cats.

Growing up, Davis recalled that after finishing his chores he would spend much of free time drawing; however he admitted his childhood drawings were of such poor quality that if he drew a cow he would have to label his drawing "cow", or else he would later fail to recognize his own work. Davis' childhood on a farm parallels the life of his cartoon character Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle , who was also raised on a farm with his parents and a brother, Doc Boy. Jon, too, is a cartoonist, and also celebrates his birth-day on July 28th. Davis attended Ball State University. While attending Ball State, he became a member of the Theta Xi fraternity. Ironically, considering his fame as a cartoonist who draws a cat, his first wife Carolyn (Altekruse) was allergic to cats although they owned a dog named Molly. They have a son, James Alexander Davis. On July 16, 2000, Davis married his current wife Jill. They have three children: James, Ashley, and Christopher. Davis as of 2007 resides in Albany, Indiana, where he and his staff produce Garfield under his company, Paws, Inc.

, begun in 1981. Paws, Inc. employs nearly fifty artists and licensing administrators, who work with agents around the world managing Garfield's vast licensing, syndication, and entertainment empire. Davis is a former President of the Fairfax, Indiana FFA chapter. Career Prior to creating Garfield, Davis worked for a local advertising agency and in 1969 began assisting Tom Ryan's comic strip, Tumbleweeds . He then created a comic strip, Gnorm Gnat , that ran for five years in The Pendleton Times, an Indiana newspaper. Davis tried to sell it to a national comic strip syndicate, but an editor told him, "Your art is good, your gags are great, but bugs — nobody can relate to bugs!" In the final strip, Davis killed off all the characters by having them get stepped on by a giant foot. On June 19, 1978, Garfield started syndication in forty-one news-papers. Things were going well until the Chicago Sun-Times canceled the strip, prompting an outcry from 1,300 readers. Garfield was reinstated and the strip quickly became the fastest selling comic strip in the world.

Today it is syndicated in 2400 news-papers and is read by approximately 200,000,000 readers each day. In the 1988-1994 cartoon series Garfield and Friends , one episode ("Mystic Manor") has a scene where Garfield slid down a fireman's pole in a haunted house, and Davis has a brief cameo as himself drawing a cartoon. In the intro to one of the Garfield treasuries, there was a mock headline saying "Jim Davis Exposed as Fraud" showing Garfield at the drawing table creating a cartoonized Jim Davis, in which the fake headline reads that Davis is under investigation for plagiarism, as "Garfield himself draws his own strip!" The page shows Garfield drawing Jim Davis who looks like a bald Jon Arbuckle with a pony-tail. It is implied that Arbuckle is a drawing of a young Davis himself. In the 1980s, Davis also made the barn-yard slap-stick comic strip U.S. Acres , featuring Orson the Pig. Outside the U.S., the strip was known as Orson's Farm.

Davis also made a 2000-2003 strip based on the toy Mr. Potato Head with Brett Koth. The idea was to do a strip from Davis' native farmland roots. In 1999, Davis authorized Garfield and Odie to be used by Boys Life magazine and the Cub Scouts in order to promote recruiting, where Odie and Garfield are seen wearing Cub Scout uniforms near a campfire or doing other outdoor related activities. In 2005, Davis appeared in the music video Lazy Muncie, a parody of the Saturday Night Live video "Lazy Sunday". Most recently, Jim Davis founded The Professor Garfield Foundation, to support children’s literacy. Writer Wrote the libretto to Love on a Leash . Quotes “I needed a name and thought of my grandfather James A. Garfield Davis, a big, cantankerous, cynical man. The name seemed to fit the personality and shape of the character.” “The name Odie is really an inside joke. I wrote a commercial for a local car dealership featuring Odie, the village idiot. I liked the name, so I used it again.” “The name Jon Arbuckle came from an old coffee commercial I remember hearing.

I’d also used the name as an ‘expert source’ to add ‘credibility’ to my speeches. When I created the comic strip, the name just seemed to fit the kind of poor sap who would get stuck with a cranky cat like Garfield.” “Doc Boy was named after my own brother, Dave ‘Doc’ Davis. Doc isn't nearly as goofy as his cartoon namesake; he's goofier.” “I actually did have a waitress show me that she hadn’t shaved her legs. You can’t make up this stuff!” Garfield Isn’t Funny And Was Never Supposed To Be Garfield Isn’t Funny and Was Never Supposed to Be James Joyner · Wednesday, March 27, 2013 · 25 Comments Slate repurposes a Quora piece titled “Is Garfield Supposed To Be Funny?” that itself repurposes a 2004 Slate piece titled “Garfield: Why we hate the Mouse but not the cartoon copycat.” Well, two can play at that game. Okay, three. Four?

Anyway, this is from Chris Suellentrop’s 2004 original: Davis’s genius is that he’s created the most widely syndicated comic strip in history—with the attendant profusion of plush toys, T-shirts, and themed Caribbean cruises—and yet, through careful brand management, he’s largely managed to deflate the naturally occurring cultural counterattack. […] Davis makes no attempt to conceal the crass commercial motivations behind his creation of Garfield. Davis has the soul of an adman—his first job after dropping out of Ball State, where he majored in business and art, was in advertising—and he carefully studied the marketplace when developing Garfield. The genesis of the strip was “a conscious effort to come up with a good, marketable character,” Davis told Walter Shapiro in a 1982 interview in the Washington Post. “And primarily an animal. … Snoopy is very popular in licensing. Charlie Brown is not.” So, Davis looked around and noticed that dogs were popular in the funny papers, but there wasn’t a strip for the nation’s 15 million cat owners. Then, he consciously developed a stable of recurring, repetitive jokes for the cat. He hates Mondays. He loves lasagna. He sure is fat.

The model for Garfieldwas Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, but not the funny Peanuts of that strip’s early years. Rather, Davis wanted to mimic the sunny, humorless monotony ofPeanuts‘ twilight years. “After 50 years, Snoopy was still laying in that dog house, and rather than getting old, it actually has the opposite effect,” Davis told the Chicago Sun-Times last year during the press blitz for Garfield‘s 25th anniversary. “It says to all of us, some things in life can be counted on, they’re consistent.” In In Dog Years I’d Be Dead, a book to commemorate Garfield‘s 25th anniversary, Davis calls the Peanuts licensing machine “a template that I could apply to Garfield.” In his very first week, Garfield aped Snoopy by declaring, “Happiness is a warm television set.” From the beginning, Davis put as much energy into the marketing of the strip as he did into creating it.

(It’s telling that he’s been inducted into the Licensing Merchandiser’s Hall of Fame but not the hall of fame hosted by the International Museum of Cartoon Art.) In 1981, only three years after the strip’s debut, he set up Paws, Inc., a privately held company to handle the licensing of Garfield products. Originally, Paws did only the creative work needed for product design, while Davis’ syndicate managed the business side, but in 1994 Davis purchased the rights to license Garfield products from the syndicate for a reported $15 to $20 million. Even before that, Davis took an active role in the selling of his creation. Before agreeing to a deal with Alpo to put Garfield’s face on a new line of cat food, Davis visited the company’s plant, talked to its employees, and spoke with the grocery industry about the company’s reputation. In his 1982 interview with Shapiro, Davis admitted to spending only 13 or 14 hours a week writing and drawing the strip, compared to 60 hours a week doing promotion and licensing.

Garfield’s origins were so mercantile that it’s fair to say he never sold out—he never had any integrity to put on the auction block to begin with. But today Davis spends even less time on the strip than he used to—between three days and a week each month. During that time, he collaborates with another cartoonist to generate ideas and rough sketches, then hands them over to Paws employees to be illustrated. Quora informationista Caroline Zelonka adds this insight: Garfield was never intended to be humorous. The joke’s always the same because it follows a bland humor formula well-known to anyone in advertising: enough to put a smile on someone’s face, but take care never to offend. And if the humor has to suffer for it, fine. The character was created to fill a niche among cat people, just as Snoopy had with dog owners. And, in my opinion, to make Jim Davis rich. No, he doesn’t write the strip anymore, but the strip isn’t what’s important: what with the movies, plush toys, branded pet food, even the “Garfield Pizza Cafe” in Kuala Lumpur.

The strip serves to keep Garfield in the public eye as a creative character, but the public eye isn’t really on print newspapers that much any more, and the daily newspaper comics section is probably one of the most moribund elements of popular culture in existence today. Good for Davis in maximizing the potential of his creation, but as a humor, it has dubious roots. Peanuts and The Family Circle were actually funny, once upon a time. Garfield, not so much. So, now you know. Are have been reminded. Or whatever. Jim Davis (cartoonist) - WOW.com Jim Davis (cartoonist) For other people named James Davis, see James Davis (disambiguation) . Jim Davis James William "Jim" Davis (father) Anna Catherine "Betty" Davis (mother) Signature James Robert "Jim" Davis (born July 28, 1945) is an American cartoonist , best known as the creator of the comic strips Garfield and U.S. Acres (aka Orson's Farm), the former of which has been published since 1978 and has since become the world's most widely syndicated comic strip.

Davis's other comics work includes Tumbleweeds , Gnorm Gnat and Mr. Potato Head . Davis has written (or in some cases co-written) all of the Emmy Award-winning or nominated Garfield TV specials and was one of the producers behind the Garfield & Friends TV show which aired on CBS from 1988 to 1994. Davis is the writer and executive producer of a trilogy of CGI -direct-to-video feature films about Garfield, as well as one of the executive producers and the creator for the CGI -animated TV series The Garfield Show . He continues to work on the strip. Contents 6 External links Personal life Jim Davis was born in Marion, Indiana on July 28, 1945. [1] Davis grew up on a small farm in Fairmount, Indiana , with his father James William "Jim" Davis, mother Anna Catherine "Betty" (née Carter) Davis, brother Dave and 25 cats . Davis's childhood on a farm parallels the life of Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle , who was also raised on a farm with his parents and a brother, Doc Boy. Jon is a cartoonist, who also celebrates his birthday on July 28.

Davis attended Ball State University where he studied art and business . While attending Ball State, he became a member of the Theta Xi fraternity . Unlike the bachelor, Jon Arbuckle, Davis has been married twice, first to Carolyn (Altekruse), who was allergic to cats, [2] though they owned a dog named Molly. [3] They have a son, James Alexander Davis. [2] [4] On July 16, 2000, Davis married his current wife, Jill, and had two more children: Ashley and Christopher. [3] In the fall of 2016 Jim Davis joined the faculty of Ball State University in Muncie as an adjunct professor. Davis resides in Albany, Indiana , where he and his staff produce Garfield under his Paws, Inc. company, launched in 1981. Paws, Inc. employs nearly 50 artists and licensing administrators, who work with agents around the world managing Garfield's vast licensing, syndication, and entertainment empire. Davis is a former president of the Fairmount, Indiana FFA chapter.

[5] Career Prior to creating Garfield, Davis worked for an advertising agency, and in 1969, he began assisting Tom Ryan's comic strip, Tumbleweeds . He then created a comic strip, Gnorm Gnat , that ran for five years in The Pendleton Times, an Indiana newspaper. When Davis attempted to sell it to a national comic strip syndicate , an editor told him: "Your art is good, your gags are great, but bugs—nobody can relate to bugs!" [6] On June 19, 1978, Garfield started syndication in 41 newspapers. Today it is syndicated in 2,580 newspapers and is read by approximately 300 million readers each day. [7] In the 1980s, Davis created the barnyard slapstick comic strip U.S. Acres. Outside the U.S., the strip was known as Orson's Farm. Davis, along with Brett Koth, also made a 2000–03 strip based on the Mr. Potato Head toy. Davis founded the Professor Garfield Foundation to support children's literacy.

[8] Garfield / WMG - TV Tropes , or in the official website's archive . Jossed by Word of God , as seen here . He laughs it off, but he doesn't actually offer a better explanation. Of course it's a scary story fitting for Halloween, but why would that make it invalid? I posit that not only every comic since, but also every comic before the 23rd are part of the delusion. And Davis doesn't know. Considering Davis created and owns the IP to Garfield, he would know better than anyone else. Jim Davis wanted to end the strip on Oct 28, 1989, but was forced to continue due to Executive Meddling . For a while, he tried to make the best of it, but he eventually started to just phone it in. He's been writing for an independent comic company under an assumed name for years now. Garfield didn't die in the Oct 28, 1989 strip; he everted Garfield has the same everting powers as Zee Tee but is so lazy that he didn't even know he had them.

One day, he took a nap in an eversion point and accidentally everted while he was asleep. After he woke up, he found his house in its everted state, freaked out, and then accidentally reverted the house back to normal. Maybe it's a good thing he didn't try to get out of the ruined house. Who knows what he would've found wandering around out there... The Garfield comic strip takes place in the town of Silent Hill . That is, following the theory that there are three "levels" of existence to Silent Hill: a normal, functioning abode that used to be a mining town, the foggy "otherworld", and the dessicated dark world. The town has been re-populated, but coal fires continue to burn underground. Jon's supposed Flanderization as the strip progresses is a result of the subtle smoke from the underground slowly damaging his mind, which would also explain Irma's "slow in the head" demeanor. (It's possible that Liz's sharpness results from her living and working on the edge of town, away from the most concentrated coal fires underground) The town, for the most part, lived in peace, unaware of the unspeakable things lurking within the lower two "planes" of its existence.

But in one week in 1989, something happened: the town called for Garfield the cat, and like James before him, poor Garfield had no choice but to answer. In the infamous Halloween week series of strips, Garfield awoke within the second "plane" of Silent Hill: the seemingly-abandoned, broken-down town. Silent Hill, mind, does not tend to pull in its chew toys without a good reason: one of the key reasons a protagonist will find themselves drawn to Silent Hill is a sort of guilt within them, an internal conflict as brutal as the creatures they encounter within the town. With that in mind, let's look at Garfield. He's a lazy Jerkass who takes Kick the Dog to a literal extent, who spends his time deriding and lashing out against Jon, the only person in the world who even gives him the time of day. These attitudes have been pushing him away from everyone else in his life, creating an unparalleled sense of isolation; the Town finally makes him confront this fact with a terrifyingly real depiction of where this road will take him.

Garfield is forced to come to grips with the simple fact, which he states in anguish: "I don't want to be alone!" And suddenly, everything is back to normal; Jon and Odie are there, and the dessicated landscape is replaced by normality. He had learned what the Town tried to teach him, rather quickly; thus, he was allowed to return from it. It's quite a good thing he did not leave the house, as well; Silent Hill aficionados know well that an empty room is far, far preferrable to the things lurking elsewhere. But it didn't take him long to resume his Jerkass ways. Thus, the Town may soon call on him once more, to teach a more permanent lesson... For clarity, this would mean it was the movie version of Silent Hill, as in the games the "normal" version is an ordinary resort town, with no coal fires to speak of. The October 23, 1989-October 28, 1989 strips were a nightmare Garfield had after watching Allegro Non Troppo Allegro Non Troppo contains a sequence about a cat remembering happy times in an abandoned house.

Garfield watched that film shortly before going to bed and had a nightmare. The end of the last strip shows him waking up. Real Life injection: The October 28, '89 strips started to gain wide Internet attention around the same time period parodies like Garfield Minus Garfield started to become big. Shortly after that, so did Allegro Non Troppo when people started accusing Jim Davis of having ripped it off for these strips. If you're willing to believe Davis, the "rip-off" theory itself is Jossed. The Halloween 1989 strips were an elaborate practical joke by Jon Jon decorated the house to look as if it had been abandoned, then took Odie and left for the week. The purpose of this prank was to teach Garfield not to take life for granted. It didn't work. The Halloween 1989 strips were nothing out of the ordinary They were just a disturbing look into what Garfield thinks when Jon leaves. Jon only went to the store and was only gone for a few minutes. Sure, early on he loved it when Jon left, but after so many years of doing the same things, you get tired of the house...

Garfield was briefly shunted into an alternate universe during the Halloween 1989 strips Garfield was not imagining anything, nor is he simultaneously hallucinating and starving to death. He just happened to fall asleep at a point in space and time which was connected to a universe where his home truly was abandoned. Not long after, though, he was sent back to his home reality when the powers that be realized that he was in the wrong universe. John was evicted because they found Lyman's corpse Lyman was murdered by John but the authorities were sent searching by his family, they had John sent to prison, Odie was put down but Garfield was asleep the whole time. Character theories Realfield is Weegee. Or, at least, the comics incarnation of him. Jon actually draws the strip, and "Jim Davis" is just a pseudonym; or "Jon Arbuckle" really is Jim Davis. Think about it. We all know from day one that Jon is a cartoonist, but we never see what strip he draws, so who's to say it's not Garfield itself?

Plus, they were both born July 28, and "Jon" and "Jim" booth start with "J" and go Consonant-Vowel-Consonant. The last strip will have Jon and Garfield going on their usual antics, but in the last panel, it zooms out to Jim Davis working on the computer on the comic (since the strip is computer-generated now) with a realistic Garfield next to him and realistic versions of all the human characters (even Lyman) watching him. Jon Arbuckle is a psychopath He killed his best friend Lyman because he wanted his dog. Garfield is an ordinary cat with an ordinary cat's mind, and Jon is a clinically depressed and possibly suicidal man who talks to his pets. Any clever quips in the little thought bubbles emanating from Garfield's head are hallucinated by his owner, Jon, along with the bubbles themselves. For more information about this hypothesis, look here . What's so unusual or strange about talking to a cat? Jon's not suicidal. Low self-esteem, sometimes; but he's energetic and enthusiastic too often to be depressed, much less suicidal. On the other hand, some kind of mild psychosis... Reality is unrealistic .

Many a suicidal person can appear normal enough in public — even moreso for depression, especially if meds are a factor. We do frequently see Jon being enthusiastic and upbeat in private, though. Perhaps bipolar disorder? He does seem to have manic episodes, come to think of it... Or else he includes Garfield (whom he thinks is sapient and cartoon) among the "people" he needs to maintain his act for. The manic states lend credence to the bipolar theory, but don't necessarily joss the depression. Reality Is Unrealistic indeed, as depressed people can still have upbeat times even in private, and in some cases these aren't infrequent. A couple websites have tried imagining what the comic would actually look like if we saw this from an objective view. Realfield presents edited comic strips that have replaced the wise-cracking, bipedal cartoon cat with a much more realistic one that reacts just like a real cat (that is to say, hardly at all) while leaving Jon's behavior untouched.

Meanwhile, Garfield Minus Garfield takes it a step further by removing the cat altogether, which leaves us with Jon literally talking to himself "as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb." This also explains why his dates tend to run away from him in terror. Also of note is Arbuckle , a project started by Tailsteak, but thrown to the viewing public. (Who haven't been doing much lately...) Are Liz and the Mailman hallucinating, too? Maybe they're both in Jon's head, too... but that still wouldn't account for the stuff that happens when Jon isn't around to hallucinate it. Maybe it's all Jon's dream - or all someone's dream. Garfield is the story of Jon slowly descending into madness, while his housecat watches At the beginning of the series, Jon was a relatively normal fellow with a fondness for football, a roommate, and normal-if-unlucky skills at romance. Over the years, he's slowly transformed into a man-child who talks to himself frequently, finds excitement in mundane activities, and frightens any woman he talks to so much that many have restraining orders against him and run in terror. What we've been taking as normal flanderization has been deliberate.

Jon is suffering from schizophrenia, and the series is showing the account via an unreliable cat narrator. We don't see him working because he's on disability, or his parents have been funneling him money to support him. His assorted freakouts and "comedic" moments are how Garfield sees him react to his delusions and hallucinations. Right now in the series, he seems to be having a moment of normalcy, perhaps because he's gone on medication and Garfield hasn't noticed. He seems to have gotten his life together slightly; he's begun dressing normally again (this most recent weekend had Jon wearing a somewhat ratty brown suit, purple shirt and matching checkered tie — it may sound a little unusual, but it's more basic and less eye-burning than his former standard outfit, a yellow plaid jacket, neon green tie, and massive daisy in lapel) and dating Liz. However, this could just be a Hope Spot . Jon's schizophrenia may yet lead to him having a massive freakout that scares even Liz away. Of course Jon's insanity may be a result of Garfield's deliberate attempts to drive Jon insane Gone Horribly Right . Garfield is telepathic.

Garfield is unable to vocalise any of his snarkiness, yet Jon frequently reacts as though he can, in fact, hear him. Garfield also directly adresses the audience , something no other character does, or at least has done in some time. This has been Jossed by Garfield's Judgement Day, where it is revealed that Garfield - and by extension, all cats - can talk, and the fact that nobody (not even Jon) could communicate with them before is a plot point. Garfield can transmit thoughts at will That's why Jon can sometimes understand what he's "thinking" and sometimes he can't! Of course sometimes Jon just ignores him. He is too lazy to use it much. Garfield's beard was part of a plot to build a franken-facial hair using Tycho Brahe's grave robbed moustache. Ambrose Burnside was part of the same project. Fortunately, no suitable eyebrows were around during the decades that the project was— What? The cat? Great, this is Cats all over again! Garfield's father is Heathcliff They look similar, and Garfield's mother is named Sonja.

Garfield, because of his selfishness and the multiple acts of pettiness against Odie and Jon, was transported by the Dark Powers in the Demi-Plane of Ravenloft Now he is the Darklord and prisoner of a tiny domain where he must be alone as a punishment for treating others the way he did. Garfield is a shinigami His lasagna addiction is much like that with Ryuk's apples. Jon carries the Death Note , but doesn't normally use it. He once used it on Lyman . Scarily enough, Garfield actually has a "Depth Note" in Garfield Gets Real (probably a 3D gag, as Gets Real was Garfield's first All-CGI Cartoon ). So this is highly plausible. Near gave a speech at the end of Death Note about how a normal person might have tried the Death Note once, as a gag, and then would've been horrified, guilt-stricken and locked it up as soon he realized that it actually works. Clearly Jon is that normal person. He tested it on Lyman after they had an argument over the chores, found out it's real when Lyman died, and has kept it hidden ever since (and is taking care of Odie out of guilt).

Garfield's hanging around for the lasagna and because Jon hasn't relinquished the Death Note to anyone else, and Jon seems to a bit of a Cloud Cuckoolander because living with the temptation of being able to kill anyone without getting caught would take its toll on anyone (especially when you're the world's Butt Monkey ). This also explains why Garfield often seems to be Jon's hallucination: only the people who have touched the Death Note can see Garfield, so most of the time, Jon seems to be talking to himself. Liz, the mailman and a few other humans have, for one reason or another, ended up touching the Death Note by mistake, and Jon takes Garfield to Liz for checkups not only to hit on her, but also to keep her convinced that Garfield's an ordinary cat. Garfield is a Bakeneko/Nekomata (or at least in the process of becoming one) .

He meets at least two of the three conditions to become one: Living over ten years of age - definitely Reaching one kan (3.75 kg or 8.25 lbs) in weight - also definitely Growing its tail too long - could be And he shows several abilities that Bakeneko/Nekomata are known to have: Walking on its hind legs: he has done so for years now. Menacing sleeping humans: Jon frequently suffers from things Garfield does to him. Several older comics focus on Garfield roughly waking Jon up. Talking: in a way, because Jon does apparently understands Garfield's snarkiness according to his facial expressions. Changing into a more menacing form , as seen in an early 1978 Halloween comic... Will throwing fireballs/snowballs come next?! Garfield has left the empty house, moved to Japan, had his mind transferred to a cat robot, and changed his name to Doraemon . Wow. Must have had a REAL change of heart to discourage being lazy to his new owner. The current Garfield, Odie, Arlene and such in the comic are Generation Xerox . Cats and dogs don't normally live as long as Garfield and his crew have.

Ignoring the rule of Comic-Book Time for the sake of this theory, at some point, the original cast passed on. Jon, whose sanity is often questionable already , didn't take this well. However, Garfield had gotten together with Arlene at some point (and Odie with some random poodle or other Temporary Love Interest ), with the usual results . Jon adopted one of the kittens that looked the most like his father, named him Garfield, and did the same for Odie. He continues to celebrate the wrong birthday and age as part of his ongoing denial over losing the originals. This is also why the strip stopped following the Arlene/Garfield romance, and why Arlene dropped out of the strip for so long. These aren't the original Garfield and Arlene; in fact, this Arlene could actually be this Garfield's younger sister. Garfield's trimmer looks over the years are a result of a cartoonish trick He hasn't actually lost any weight, he simply shifted it all to his feet. LOOK AT THEM. They're HUGE nowadays. Garfield's hatred of Mondays stems from lasagna withdrawal. In one episode of Garfield and Friends , Garfield finds a wishing well and wishes Monday out of existence.

It's a standard Be Careful What You Wish For plot, but contains a particularly odd reveal. Jon no longer cooks lasagna for Garfield, because Monday night was lasagna night. This doesn't make a lot of sense, considering how much Garfield hates the day and loves the food, unless you think about it the right way . On Monday morning, Garfield has gone seven mornings without lasagna, and this problem won't be rectified until the end of the day. Cue grumpiness and impatience. Garfield's understandable hatred of Mondays started with his love, then unwarranted hate, of them. [ In 1979], Garfield loved Mondays, because while many humans are returning to work from the traditional replacement day of rest, Garfield, being a cat, doesn't have to. The smugness he felt was just aching to be deflated, but then he started hating it for [ "marking the beginning of a long week of drudgery with no end in sight"], and yet... still no job. No sudden transition from rest to work. What drudgery could he be hating it for?

And so, the universe decided to give him something to hate the day for: Anything from unwanted visits from Nermal to random pies in the face to having large objects fall improbably on him in open fields. "Doc Boy" is the formal name of Jon's brother. Mentioned by Jon's mother when the three were looking at a photo album. When he goes on a diet, Garfield is put on drugs by Jon. This may explain why everything appears screwed-up in some of the diet-themed comics. Part of Binky the Clown's contract is that he must be off his meds during sweeps week Or he could be one of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space . Nermal was given to Jon recently. Why else does his recent vists seem to imply that he's part of the household? Mai Tai isn't the cat that Garfield befriended in Garfield in Paradise. Have you noticed the glee of the fat cat and the lady right next to her when the chief called for Owooda and Mai Tai than their collective shock when Owooda walked in with the pink cat who looks like Arlene?

That's because the fat cat was infact Mai Tai(the pink cat never stated that she was infact Mai Tai and never was addressed as Mai Tai by Owooda either) and that the fat lady was her kittysitter assigned to her(the fat lady is clearly not Owooda judging from the words of the chief so this is the only logical possibility). The cat who looks like Arlene? That's Arlene following Garfield to Paradise Island(which part of the plane she was on is unknown) and judging from Mai Tai and her Kittysitter's reaction to her appearance hitch-hiked on the car Jon rented all the way to the village and snuck out while Jon and Garfield were listening to the chief's tale about "The Cruiser" and ended up being found by Owooda who adopted her(until she snuck away to follow Garfield back to the US leaving Owooda with the much fatter Mai Tai). She never shows her teeth even once which indicates that she doesn't want Garfield to suspect her true identity(which explains why she doesn't correct Garfield when he addresses her as Mai Tai) and start matching wits with her nor to start insulting the gap between her teeth.

In this strip, Garfield is kicked out because Jon's shirts — except for one which says "I [heart] Cats" — are missing. Outside, Odie is leaning against the door, wearing one of Jon's shirts with an evil grin on his face. I think Odie really is dumb, but not THAT dumb, and the other characters simply overestimate how dumb he really is, partially due to the fact that the others can't understand his thoughts. I believe that Odie does have thoughts, but is unable to transmit his thoughts to the others due to a brain injury of some sort when he was a puppy, possibly from Garfield being abusive to him as usual. Sort of like the whale dude in "Finding Dory" whose ECHO thingy didn't work quite right due to a head injury. He's actually really quite smart for a dogï¿½ he can finish a sudoku in record time, order dingleballs off the internet, figure out how to operate Jon's car (which he drove through the house), etc.

(I think the "Odie reading War and Peace" strip was a joke and wasn't meant to be taken seriously.) Also, he's a dog; dogs pant and lick and slobber, which is part of the reason why Odie looks so stupid all the time. He does show good judgement sometimes, though. Even when Garfield doesn't. Overall, he's still pretty stupid, but still intelligent enough to function. I think a good example of Odie being "not that dumb" would be the strip from September 7, 2010. ◊ To a normal person, it looks like Odie just left the conversation with the purple dog because he's stupid. But the purple dog has been shown to bark at everyone and sometimes become violent and chase them. Odie might know about this. Remember that Odie can't transmit thoughts to others and enjoy my interpretation of what really happened. Purple dog: How's it going? What Odie may be thinking in the first panel: Hmm. I'm not sure about this dog. He's a bit mean. He might be being nice to us to try to trick us! I don't trust this guy. Come on, Garfield, let's go.

[Odie turns to leave; however, since his telepathy powers don't work properly, neither Garfield nor the dog register that he's "said" anything, and therefore are surprised when he walks away.] [About a second later, Odie realizes that Garfield isn't moving at all.] What Odie may be thinking in the second panel: Well, Garfield, it's your funeral. Purple dog: Has that guy bumped his head? Garfield: More times than you'd believe... See what I mean? If you think about all the points I've already given, my interpretation of this strip makes perfect sense. Of course, Odie worrying that the dog might be trying to deceive them was probably a false alarm but still. Overall, Odie isn't obfuscating stupidity. He may be obfuscating happiness though. No one can be kicked off a table every day and rarely be shown any kindness and still be happy. This is explained in my next WMG below... Odie is a Stepford Smiler who is secretly suffering from severe depression. After years of being abused by Garfield and misunderstood by Jon, Odie has become very discontent with his life.

He's sick of Garfield beating him up all the time and rarely being nice to him, and yearns for the days when they did everything together and helped each other out. And although Jon cares for him, he doesn't realize how rough Garfield is being to him. He misses Lyman, and the bond they once shared, and is on the brink of becoming a shell of his former self. The only thing keeping him from being open about his feelings is the idea that he is a big dog, and big dogs don't cry, right? This fanfic I made explains this theory in more depth. Garfield and the dog killed the mailman Has anyone noticed that ever since this comic back in 2002, the mailman hasn't appeared or even been mentioned in the comic anymore? It seems that Garfield and the dog ganging up on him went a little too far. What happened to Lyman? Lyman is Luigi Think about it. They look pretty similar. Lyman has Mario's mustache. And Lyman was last seen in a regular Garfield strip in 1983, the same year that Luigi debuts in Mario Bros. . Coincidence?

Plus they're both young, under-appreciated, and have names that begin with the letter 'L'. Lyman was gay. For Jon. But they weren't a couple. Jon was just a straight, extremely unlucky man, and Lyman eventually moved out , leaving Odie as a sort of Audience Surrogate for himself, since while he couldn't stand to be near but not with Jon, Odie could. Lyman killed himself. See above for one possibility, but the possible causes are many and varied. Lyman killed everyone else. Garfield is a Time Lord . His TARDIS is his bed, that's why he can fit Pooky and other things in it without them showing. Garfield being a Time Lord would explain why his appearance has changed so much over the course of the comic strip, he's changed into new forms. The reason why everyone else in the series has changed so much is because Garfield has traveled into a distant past (or future) that has people similar to the other eras that Garfield has visited. And when Garfield was in the abandoned house that everyone here is obsessed with , he simply traveled too far into the future and momentarily panicked. Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes take place in the same universe.

The connection is Lyman . He disappears from the strip in 1983, then a few years later reappears in Calvin & Hobbes. Lyman is Calvin's Uncle Max : his full name is Max Lyman. The evidence is that Max ◊ and Lyman ◊ look the same, and have a similar sartorial taste. The few differences between the two (such as Max's bigger nose) can be explained by different artistic impressions of the same character. Max's hairline has receded somewhat since he was living with Jon, but there are years between his disappearance from Garfield and reappearance in Calvin & Hobbes, so that certainly could've happened. Max being Lyman also explain why he's worried about Calvin's imaginary friend ◊ , and why he says that all of his friends might've been imaginary too. When he was living Jon, they were caught up in a folie à deux , where they imagined their cat and dog were acting like human beings. Max realized he had to break away from this fantasy, but Jon, being the more infantile of the two, couldn't do the same.

Max realized he had no choice but leave: that's why he disappeared so suddenly from Garfield and left Odie behind. His past history explains his comment about imaginary friends (he's referring to Garfield an Odie), as well as why he thinks Calvin having an imaginary friend might not be healthy for him. Calvin and Hobbes actually appeared as background characters once. Garfield, Odie and Jon are reincarnations or Alternate Universe versions of Bucky, Satchel and Rob . Snarky cat. Stupid dog. Owner who can understand them. Am I the only one who thought of this? Or perhaps Get Fuzzy is a deconstruction of Garfield, being more realistic and edgy than Garfield, and containing more three-dimensional characters. Garfield is the Cat Next Door That Cat and Snoopy annoy each other, and the cat likes to destroy Snoopy's Doghouse. It doesn't seem like a stretch that Garfield, who loves to cause Odie pain, wouldn't be up for destroying a doghouse. Plus, there could be another reason as to why Lucy hates dog kisses: Odie keeps kissing her Jon killed Gnorm Gnat That giant foot that squashed Gnorm Gnat at the end of his final comic?

That was Jon, on his way home from the pet store after picking up Garfield. Recurring themes Miscellaneous The last strip of Garfield The finale will consist of Jon letting an older Garfield live in the same Italian restaurant (where he was born in) with other stray cats, before living his final bachelor days with Dr Liz, being Happily Married . That concludes the strip. Garfield hates raisins because he ate rabbit poop at one point. It's made apparent in Garfield and Friends that he hates raisins. Rabbit and other rodent poop look like raisins, so that makes sense why he strays away from them. Even if one thinks they look like raisins, they certainly wouldn't smell the same , especially to a cat. Unless of course Garfield has an unusually poor sense of smell, which is possible since he doesn't seem to use it much. Jim Davis is winding up the strip. Think on it. This used to be one of the Status Quo Is God strips, when it came to Jon's love life. Now suddenly he's dating the woman of his dreams? The strip is ending. And it will end when Jon and Liz get engaged or married. Note: this comic did what the author intended it to do.

And it has been in print for approximately thirty years. He's not doing it for the art; this won't be a 10-Minute Retirement . Considering that Jon and Liz have been a couple for over five years, Jossed. Jim Davis (Cartoonist) - Pics, Videos, Dating, & News Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Jim Davis. CHILDHOOD 1945 Birth Jim Davis was born in Marion, Indiana on July 28, 1945. … Read More Davis grew up on a small farm in Fairmount, Indiana, with his father James William "Jim" Davis, mother Anna Catherine "Betty" (nÃ©e Carter) Davis, brother Dave and 25 cats. Davis's childhood on a farm parallels the life of Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle, who was also raised on a farm with his parents and a brother, Doc Boy. Jon is a cartoonist, who also celebrates his birthday on July 28. Davis attended Ball State University where he studied art and business.

While attending Ball State, he became a member of the Theta Xi fraternity.<br /><br /> Unlike the bachelor, Jon Arbuckle, Davis has been married twice, first to Carolyn (Altekruse), who was allergic to cats, though they owned a dog named Molly. They have a son, James Alexander Davis. Read Less TWENTIES 1969 23 Years Old Prior to creating Garfield, Davis worked for an advertising agency, and in 1969, he began assisting Tom Ryan's comic strip, Tumbleweeds. … Read More He then created a comic strip, Gnorm Gnat, that ran for five years in The Pendleton Times, an Indiana newspaper. When Davis attempted to sell it to a national comic strip syndicate, an editor told him: "Your art is good, your gags are great, but bugsânobody can relate to bugs!" <br /><br /> On June 19, 1978, Garfield started syndication in 41 newspapers.

Today it is syndicated in 2,580 newspapers and is read by approximately 300 million readers each day.<br /><br /> In the 1980s, Davis created the barnyard slapstick comic strip U.S. Acres. Outside the U.S., the strip was known as Orson's Farm. Read Less FIFTIES

Question: A former advertising executive, who is the "creative genius" behind the Garfield comic strip?
Answer: Jim Davis